UPDATED: NOV 25, 2021 Bottle shared by my brother: pours near black with small head. Aroma is coffee, some spice, some roast, hints of chocolate. Rum barrel is noticeable, some spice notes, plenty of coffee.

UPDATED: NOV 18, 2021 500mL bottle from SBR. Nose fills the room with chocolate and heavy coffee, scorch, heavy roast, also some of the slight plastic that sometimes comes with holiday flavored grounds. Surprisingly, no barrel character aromatics out of the bottle (a little in the glass), but the coffee is really earthy, muddy, roasty, beany. Pour mid-brown collecting to black in the glass with a sudsy tan head. Taste moderately dry with light tanginess and light-medium bitterness, much more alcohol here, no burn or heat at all, really, no fumes, but does have the cheap distortion of bottom shelf hooch, without any redemptive jammy fruit. Do not enter into this experience expecting holiday spices, this is just about the coffee and cooperage. Some mild scratch, medium body is surprising, low caramel, no real melanoidin, mild ash and good scorch and roast, lasting and warming roast through the finish. Medium carbonation appropriate enough. Small amount of wood, though it does accumulate with volume, and just a hint of non-neutral rum -- a rounding character but I think the beer would have been better served in the barrel of a different spirit. Some good things going for it technically, but I'd say to pass. [2021.11.17: 3.4]